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Shanghaiese Swarm Database Booth and Sessions at Tech Days

Manyi Lu presented Sun's database technology options to a riveted audience here at Tech Days Shanghai, and was practically mobbed after the session as individuals surrounded her to ask questions.

As I reported yesterday, Java DB is a pure Java database for Java developers, and PostgreSQL is an enterprise database people can use for deployment.

What did these developers want to know? I asked Manyi and Wei-Chen Chu, who does product marketing for PostgreSQL.

"Most of them are developers so they want to know more details about the technology, if they're using other databases how can they migrate?" said Wei-Chen.

"Most of the developers only know Oracle, and they're surprised to learn that these are robust databases that are open source. So you don't have to pay any licensing fee, you can just use it for whatever you want and if you want support later then you can buy sun support contracts. So compared to Oracle, which is a proprietary database, you have to pay a huge amount in the beginning. A company who has cost constraints might want to consider an open source database."

But MySQL is open source, too...so what's the advantage of PostgreSQL?

"Yes, MySQL is an open source database, but the advantage of PostgreSQL is that Sun can provide the 24/7 global support while MySQL, a company not as globalized as Sun, has a hard time with that," added Wei-Chen. "And of course it's optimized for Solaris."

I found out that PostgreSQL is a very mature database, too, with a large, active open source community. It's integrated into and optimized for Solaris. And JavaDB comes bundled with the Java JDK, the Sun Java Application Server PE 9.0 and the open source Glassfish application server. It's also supported by NetBeans 5.5.

I asked why the booth was always crowded, what are the confusion points for the developers?

"It's not just because we're two incredibly beautiful women," joked Manyi. "They're asking asking technical questions about new development and also migration."

Some of the developers were from Alibaba, which is an eBay-like website not for consumers, but for B2B. "Their founder is one of the richest guys in China," said Manyi.

Okay, well then I'll leave you alone to talk to them!" I said, and as I left the crowds closed in again.